Sunday, August 14, 2011
Today is enough to bring joy and peace. The sun rose and it will set. I awoke and I breathed in God and breathed out all that isn’t so right…then breathed in the breath of God again. And my soul was purified, my body given new strength for the journey ahead.
No day will be perfect. It seems like more of mine, lately, are not as happy as I want them to be. I don’t think wanting joy is a bad thing; I also don’t think that wanting something like a joyful spirit is selfish and something I have to wait for “God’s timing” to have. I think joy is a birthright, given by God as a gift of love. What I do with my time, how I spend my energy (both doing and thinking), who I spend my time with and such, all reflect on the joy I am – or am unable – to muster up and feel and let radiate to others.
Today’s journey may not feel as productive as I want it to. There are things to do that I’ve put off and things to do I put off because I don’t want to face them. Personal and family health issues, relationship struggles, war, famine, hate, dissociation from the love of Christ…I sometimes don’t know what to focus on and how I am to spend my time. I pray and ask God to guide my way, to direct my talents, to help lighten the load so that I can focus and produce for Him that which is necessary to further The Kingdom…
And so today I pray that the Spirit enters, brings me peace and joy…and that others are able to be blessed by that same Spirit and to know, on a very deep level, that they are loved not for what they do or what they might become, but for who they already are. May there be joy simply – and profoundly– in knowing this truth.
Amen.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Sometimes all we can do is to just stay busy, even when it doesn’t feel like it’s really being productive or leading us to that sense of a higher purpose or reaching the goals we’ve set out for ourselves. Even when we know the value of our human-hood isn’t how much we do or what we produce…nor the number of things we acquire, the number of contacts we add to our list of friends, acquaintances, work associates and such, the credentials we amass or the many other things or “status points” we can achieve, it can still be a struggle to feel like we are valuable when we compare ourselves to those who seem to have achieved so much more than we think we have.
Having a health problem has meant I underachieve compared to many others. Compared to myself, however, I achieve just what God has intended for my life. This doesn’t give me room, however, to lay around and not attempt to use the gifts and talents I have been given. What it does mean is that I have had to rethink my life a million times…pick myself up and try things over and over and over again. It has meant I have had to admit some things are too difficult for me. It has meant that I worked really hard at achieving professional credentials to work in the medical field and then had to face the ultimate inability to work such a stressful job. It has meant I have spent many moments…that have, sadly, spread into hours and days and weeks and years…trying to figure out what I am to do with my life. I have had to rethink and retry so many times that the creative energy and excitement that can come with career searching ran its course way before I could give in to that fading energy.
So sometimes all I can do is just be really busy. It’s been a coping strategy that has pulled me from depression and a sense of worthlessness many times. I also have to balance it with spending time really focusing on what I want to achieve next. I do that because I know that, in spite of the limits my health imposes, there are still many things I can do. I may not be able to get on a plane and fly around to attend important business conventions or exotic events. I won’t be able to fulfill my dream of international missions. I won’t be able to stand before a crowd and deliver an inspirational speech. I won’t be able to do a ton of things I dreamed…and dream…of doing.
But what I can do is to live in the moment, give thanks for the day, remember the journey is one step at a time, and compare my life only to myself as an individual. While there are certainly things I could’ve done that I haven’t, it’s more likely that there are things I’ve accomplished – and will accomplish – that far outshine the abilities I “should” have considering the health issues I deal with.
Bottom line: Staying busy is good. Filling my time with things that fill me up and with activities that serve and bless others are vital to my own well-being. Being busy keeps me in balance. Being busy is a way to use my talents, my energy, my ambitions. Being busy isn’t the same as senselessly running around trying to avoid my own inner angst. Being busy can be focused, purposeful, meaningful, giving, fulfilling, and forward moving.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Negativity. Is there a way to battle that energy? Or is it to be embraced as part of the human condition? Negativity. Where does it come from? Personal experience? Handed down by others? Is it the same as cynicism? Does having a negative moment mean one is globally gloomy? Is it really better to be positive and optimistic than negative? Is being negative truly the same as being a realist? Does that then make someone negative about the human condition, seeing people as hopeless, dependent, forlorn, lost?
Today I encounter negativity. Not from myself, but from my peers. I call them on it a bit. I hear it is “realism”. These are people I am to be a team with, to develop programs with and to grow disciples with for the church. If I were to agree with the negative attitudes, aimed at those we seek to minister to, I believe I would lost all enthusiasm and hope. I would see others as needy, greedy, selfish, non-committal, eternally lost within themselves. I would see my efforts as futile. I would see the condition of those in need – poverty, abuse, loneliness, illness, addiction, etc. – as self-caused. I would label them as weaker (than me, of course). I would see them as tainted, degrade them with a superior attitude, and bring injustice to them with a rolling of my eyes, a disinterest, a disgusted sigh. I would paint myself as better than they are – superior of course. I would forget that the things I have that they seek –a place to live, a body that works well enough to get me through the day without medical care, a family unit, a job, self-confidence, enough money to buy food for the day – are gifts from God, things I’ll eventually lose in one way or another, and things I often struggle with too (on a spiritual, physical, social or other level).
If I were to look at negativity I would react to it the way I did today…by repelling it and not buying into the “realism” piece of it. We all could benefit from a little house-keeping of the soul. An attitude adjustment, perhaps. I chose to see others through eyes of love. I chose to be positive and kind. I choose to see hope, to throw aside blame, and to share compassion. Call me unrealistic…but then, so be it.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Today I feel pressured to do more than I do…it’s obviously coming from comparing myself to others who have such inner drive and the ability to be social and extroverted and actually pull ideas into real events, projects, and major efforts to overhaul some social system. A friend of mine is working to get rid of the concept of mental illness, believing it’s all pharmaceutical driven…she’s an artist, athlete, spokeswoman. Not that I want to be her, just that she inspires me but it also brings me to this spot inside myself where I can’t figure out why I was born with ideas I am unable to pull off and why my physical disability has grown worse, leaving me at times stuck at home because of the dizziness and fatigue. Sometimes…too often and increasingly so…the ideas, passions and calling I have seem so fragmented and torn, brushed under the carpet for so long that the ideas have faded, the spark nearly extinguished.
I often feel inadequate. I didn’t used to – but more recently, as I see the ramifications of my disability and how it has left me so immobilized, where some days I just find random things to do to make the time pass and what a waste of time it all seems most of the time because I’ve my focus has grown dim because the efforts to get there are made impossible by my health…it’s hard. Hard to explain, hardest yet to understand. Could I be more? Could this be different? I see others so happy. I see others joy-filled, exuberant, living their lives without having to think about this sort of stuff. Or so it seems.
Sometimes I feel like giving up any aspirations of doing more than just being here, passing the day, trying to believe that each moment is truly sacred, whether or not I am aspiring to doing something innovative or system-changing. I believe I seek something more because of an innate drive to do something with the gifts and passions I was given from my Creator. I don't think this is unique for me, althought the expression of it is unique for each of us.
I will continue to pray about this because that is all any of us can do when faced with confusion and frustration, inner conflict and just not knowing what comes next…if only we can trust, let go, and let ourselves experience that which is, instead of trying to hold onto that which is not...but having a vision for ourselves and for the future is something that keeps us motivated and moving along the sacred steps of our lives. I pray today that those of us struggling with this can just breathe in God and exhale anything that interferes with the sacred connection that lets us know that we are, truly, enough just as we are.
